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[Asehujiko]

Ritterbrüder aren't the TO's greatest strength, that would be the Order Spearmen. T2(!) Castle(also good since the order is castle only), high stamina, large shielded, good morale, anti cavalry troops with moderate-high attack and OBSCENE defense. They hold up in a fight against everybody's T5 units except for the obvious uber units and even then they tend to shred even the best cavalry.

The best part: they are even cheaper and easier to mass produce then genoese crossbow militia. Screw all those fancy knights that require you to jump through several hoops to get and go Red Army on them, except with(most likely) superior troops.

Speaking of the Teutonic Order campaign, did anybody notice that their music is completely badass?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCHSreFMkXw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgnVEU2ZzTI

Also, byzantine flamethrowers are balanced by only appearing in the crusades campaign, being only recruit able in constantinople, which is located in arse nowhere for that scenario and you are likely to loose it because of those damn venetian backstabbers, having the unit size of an artillery crew, being hideously expensive and their inability to be retrained anywhere other then that backwater in the corner of the map on the far side of a sea which is right besides he spawning point for all scripted baddies.

A word of warning about artillery, the manogel rains fiery death upon enemies between itself and the target. Never, ever use your general's bodyguard to screen your siege equipment from enemy charges if you deploy those. Don't forget to reposition them so that they never shoot over your own troops too if a fight breaks out. Even better, use trebuchets instead. They do produce very pretty fireworks in custom night battles however.

Also, if you have a non steam and unpatched version of kingdoms, try some using some lithuanian arqebusiers against anything else in a custom battle.

[kalida99]

Silly HUMMIES and your unit spam tactics, most of the units you spam can usually be easily killed with a little cavalry maneuvering...too bad the AI is as dumb as a brick  .

The song that plays on the credits sums up every war ever pretty much: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEB_eKpCNUs

[Aqizzar]

Eh, song is kind of lame.  Catchy, but eh.

I'm not a fan of the expansions, mainly because they amplify the things that I don't like about the main game.  The maps are all waaay too big, heck the Britannia map has more territories than the stock game.  But they only have like five kingdoms each.  In the main game, the map is huge, but you only have to care about part of it at a time, and you run into new enemies as you move around.  Just too much crap to keep track of each turn.

However, I love the shit out of the Americas campaign, because it still has a good balance of size and factors.  And a soft spot left over from my Colonization LP.  For some reason, every time I started a new game as the Spanish (I'll start the same game several times before committing to one), Hernan Cortez would die in the first battle.  After the third time, I decided to just go with it and rewrite history, and I love it.  All the new heroes and alliances I get to foster, and stories to tell.

Mostly just of my one culverin achieving superduperultra veterancy from obliterating half of every army I face, but stories and characters all the same.

[Huesoo]

In the Apache campaign the Spanish died out on turn 9, I killed the french and finally the english are roaming around the map with their leader, they have no terrotories

[Jreengus]

Lithuania slaughters everything in the tectonic campaign, a good mix of horse archers and cavalry militia and you don't need to bother with any other units. Focus your cavalry militia on heavy infantry/cavalry and your horse archers on the lighter ones. Massed cavalry charges can deal with any archers. Once your cavalry militia run out of ammo keep them back and let your horse archers finish. At this point you've taken maybe 10 losses and your enemy is completely demoralised, a single charge with every unit will result in an enemy rout and since you entire force is light cavalry none of them are making it off that battlefield.

[umiman]

Since no one answered it yet (I think), the difference between flaming arrows and regular arrows is mostly a speed vs power difference.

Flaming arrows fire about 1/2 the speed of regular arrows but do more damage. To illustrate, you would choose to use regular arrows against lightly armored foes like peasants and militia or other archers but you would use flaming arrows against heavier armored foes like dismounted knights. The extra damage thing doesn't really make much sense but that's how the game works.

However, flaming arrows also do significant morale damage. So while it might be inefficient to use flaming arrows against an advancing wall of spearmen, if your intent is to weaken their morale so that they break off the moment they actually reach your lines, then you should use flaming arrows. If you wanted to slaughter that same advancing wall, so that your infantry can wipe them out easily, you would use regular arrows as the incessant hail of arrows would decimate foes without full platemail (this means basically everyone). Also, you would probably use flaming arrows if you were concerned about ammunition when fighting huge, HUGE numbers of enemies or defending against 6 armies or something since it fires slower.

Generally speaking, you should use regular arrows when attacking and have superior numbers and flaming arrows when defending and are outnumbered. Also, always use regular arrows against enemy archers unless they're those french platemail-wearing crossbowmen.

Or if you want to look cool. Whoo, flaming arrows!

Edit: if you've got a bunch of infantry chasing your archers on skirmish mode all over the map, the best thing to do is set them on regular arrows so they actually have time to shoot.

[Cthulhu]

I reinstalled it yesterday, still haven't played it though.

Crusader Knights rule.  I had a battle once where I sieged a walled city while another enemy came in behind me.

The second army was 300 spear militia, so once I breached the gates I sat about 80 Dismounted Crusader Knights in the chokepoint while the rest of my guys dealt with the defenders.

The dismounted crusader knights killed 299 out of the 300 attackers, and sustained 0 casualties.  Owned.

[dogstile]

The greek flamethrowers aren't as overpowered as most people think. The second they get targeted they are screwed, and if they get charged? They'll take down a few but they really don't take out that many enemies. Plus they can only be retrained in the back of the map.

[Heron TSG]

Explain to me how light cavalry can take out a full army of Highland Noble Archers? If the cavalry get close, the nobles can slash away. If they back off, the nobles will shoot them to death.

[Jackrabbit]

Well, if they're moving fast enough they're a difficult target to hit, and once they crash into the archers the guys have no real defense. Pure momentum will carry the day.

[Aqizzar]

Pincer pincer pincer.  Hit a unit from enough sides with enough units, and Peasants can take down Feudal Knights.  That's the purpose of cavalry, to go around the battle line and smack into the enemy's flanks while your infantry hold the front.

[Jackrabbit]

Most common death for a mounted unit? Mobbed to death. If the enemy is not organized enough or explicitly tailored to fight mounted units, hold down alt, charge, then immediately pull out. The hint here is that the game refers to knights as 'wrecking balls'. Wrecking balls do no damage if they stay still. It's a huge benefit to attack from the flanks or back, but momentum will always carry the day.

Case in point: Flat, grassy map. 4 Feudal Knights.

The enemy has 20 dismounted Chivalric knights. I take something like 40% casualties, but I win by a landslide, because of 'charge, pull out, charge'. And it's probably important to note that my knights functioned individually. That said, if the enemy can tie up your mounted units, they will. Do anything and everything to avoid this.

[Rilder]

Its worth noting that you should watch their lances/spears, if they don't go into "Charge" position then abort because the charge is a failure, true in RTW too. (especially with EB)

[Heron TSG]

Aye. A 'formed' charge only occurs when charging in a straight line. Any deviation and you Bodyguard will try sword-jousting. Not easy, that.

[Neruz]

Charges work best against thinner lines of infantry too. If there's a thick enough mass of infantry to stop the knights so they only get half-way through then they're in trouble. Odds are they probably did enough damage that they'll still win, but they'll suffer disproportionate casualties.

I've found from Rome that Cavalry do much better if you nip at the edges, charge into thin areas and chop off corners, alternately have them come round and have surprise buttsecks with enemy infantry after you tie the infantry up with your own.


Judging from my few hours of play in Medieval II so far, the same concept applies; i've been systematically exterminating armies more than 3 times my size with nothing more than light cavalry and suffering only minimal casualties from archers. It takes awhile, but it's lethally effective.